On Pins and Needles by Victoria Pade Page B

for not having at least spoken to my prime suspects,” he admitted, confirming that he had a lot on his mind.
    â€œThere’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”
    â€œThat doesn’t seem to matter.”
    Megan moved away from the front door and hung onto the back of a rocking chair her father had hand-crafted, hoping to ground herself from the potency of Josh’s effects on her.
    â€œWhat about the forensics report?” she asked, going with the flow of the conversation Josh seemed intent on pursuing. “Did that tell you some thing that’s making it more urgent that you talk to my folks?”
    â€œIf you mean did forensics turn up some thing that made it look worse for them, no. The bones were studied and X-rayed but there weren’t any telltale signs. No breaks, no knife-nicks, nothing that looked as if it hadbeen grazed by a bullet, all the neck bones were intact and so was the skull. And there wasn’t a bullet recovered from the site or any bullet holes or knife gashes in the clothes,” he said as if reciting a speech. “The bottom line is that they’re reasonably sure he wasn’t stabbed or shot, and that the cause of death wasn’t a blow to the head, so there’s still no telling how he died.”
    â€œAnd for sure it’s the skeleton of a man?”
    â€œNo doubt about it. Plus forensics went through the pockets of the clothes and the knapsack. The man’s name was Pete Chaney—it was on a bottle of nitroglycerin tablets and on a Nebraska driver’s license that expired five years before he did. Does the name ring any bells?”
    Megan thought about it, then shook her head. “Not with me. But did you say he had nitroglycerin tablets? Doesn’t that mean he had a heart problem? Maybe that’s how he died—from a heart attack. And if that’s true then there’s no crime here at all.”
    â€œThere’s still the issue of not reporting a death to the authorities and the unlawful disposal of human remains,” Josh pointed out.
    â€œMaybe it was his last wish.”
    Josh didn’t look convinced. “You think his last wish was to be buried on the sly in a shallow grave in someone’s backyard?”
    Okay, when he put it that way it didn’t sound too likely.
    â€œBesides, just because there isn’t any evidence of a knife or a gun or a baseball bat doesn’t mean he died of natural causes. He could still have been poisoned,strangled or suffocated—none of those would show up in what we were left with.”
    â€œBut what’s not there can’t count against my folks.”
    â€œAnd speaking of what’s not there,” Josh said as if she’d just played right into his hand. “If Pete Chaney was the drifter old Buzz was talking about yesterday, and he had valuable coins of some kind, where are they? They weren’t with his remains.”
    â€œWhich is making you think what?” Megan probed since that seemed to be important to him.
    â€œI’m just wondering where your folks got the money to move without selling their property. And where they got the money to go on following their causes from one place to another.”
    â€œOh, so now my parents are not only murderers, they’re thieves, too?”
    â€œJust asking.”
    Megan stared at Josh for a long moment, trying to use the annoyance about his suspicions to counter act the other effects he was having on her. Like the fact that she was ultra-aware of the line of his jaw where today’s uniform shirt brushed it. Like the way a slight smattering of hair curled up tantalizingly beneath his open collar. Like the way the shirt barely contained his pectorals and then billowed more loosely at the waist where it was tucked into jeans that fit him so well they could have been hand-tailored for him. Like the bulge of thick thighs…and other things…within the confines of those